


The Stations of Jean Valjean

by Pygmy Puff (ppuff)



Series: The Stations of Jean Valjean [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Digne, Favorelles, Gen, Missing Scene, Toulon, What-if Scenario
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 04:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5191718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ppuff/pseuds/Pygmy%20Puff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first part of a series of ficlets that traces the different life stages of Jean Valjean. This installment features vignettes from Favorelles, Toulon, and Digne. Specifically: what if Jean Valjean met with the Bishop again before heading to Montreuil?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stations of Jean Valjean

**Author's Note:**

> I drafted the first scene of this story over a year and a half ago. I kept tinkering with it but it never quite felt complete. I later realized it was because the premise of the story hinted at a much larger story than what resulted.
> 
> It wasn't until I posted "The Guest of Montreuil-sur-Mer" a few months ago that I realized these scenes would work best as glimpses of a larger series. So this story became the first installment of a larger arc with the same title, and "The Guest of Montreuil-sur-Mer" became the second, albeit first written, installment.
> 
> I do hope to add more installments eventually. But for now, I hope you'll enjoy these snippets of Jean Valjean's early years!

**Faverolles**

There once was a family in Faverolles that shared in every aspect the same fate as their neighbors around them: honest, hardworking folks whose daylong toils could not bring in enough food to fill the stomachs of their women and children. This particular family, sustained by a young man only in his twenties following the early deaths of his parents, shared love with each other generously among the young man, his older sister, and the sister’s seven children. There was no wealth or food to share; love was free.

The young man was a pruner. He was intelligent and strong and had a natural kindness to him that hinted at a sensitive soul. Yet apart from his large family, this young man was very much alone. Mindful of the need to feed eight stomachs other than his own, he never married. He always gave the same reasons even as he entered his twenty-seventh year: he could not possibly afford another mouth, could not imagine supporting another child. He was content with the family he already had. Besides, he still had time. Maybe he would consider marriage in his thirties.

If he were honest with himself, however, the young man would reluctantly agree that he had on occasions dreamed of a future of his own. The girls he grew up with were pretty and kind, and everybody in Faverolles was equally destitute. Why, indeed, would he not have a proper family one day, with his own children? He could never quite define the strange lurching of his heart whenever he lost himself in his mind’s visions of a faraway future. It was a yearning… but of what, he didn’t know. So he kept the strange effect a secret and, with a single-mindedness borne out of a desperation to stave off hunger in his family for yet another winter, the young man continued to tend to trees and gardens and offered himself up for any sort of manual labor that was available, never pausing to think about finding love for himself.

Any hope he may have harbored was dashed one winter day, when he robbed a bakery of a loaf of bread. His youngest nephew was sick and there was no work for a pruner in February. When desperation set in and he made the decision on impulse to steal, the only thing he managed to have stolen was his future—disappearing before his eyes like a dried leaf disintegrating into a thousand pieces and blown away. Five years of hard labor, the court had pronounced. To his ringing ears, the young man heard the passing of death sentences on his sister and all of her children.

From that moment on, the young man fell. He fell into the bagne and into darkness. He fell into fear and despair. Over the years, the tears dried and the last traces of his memories of home disappeared like wisps of smoke spreading thin into the sky. Eventually, he fell into hatred.

He became at once many names and no name at all: a string of numbers (Prisoner 24601), convict, the Jack, escapee (caught and returned), the dangerous one.

But never would he be Jean Valjean of Faverolles again.

-

**Toulon**

Jean Valjean was sentenced to the bagne for five years. His first escape attempt four years into his sentence lengthened his term to eight years; his second escape attempt two years later—along with resisting capture—made it thirteen years; his third escape attempt four years later made it sixteen years; and his last escape attempt three years later, in 1809 and caught after only four hours, turned a five-year sentence into nineteen painful, bitter years.

When he finally came to his senses and gave up on escaping, Jean Valjean needed another focus to direct his hatred. Wanting to exact revenge on the world, he decided to become educated.

“I am here,” he announced to his would-be teachers. “The guards say I can learn the letters. I am willing. See here, I grew up poor. My sister cannot read. And now she and her seven children are dead. I am sure of it. It has been fifteen years. Those who know how to read and write have all the money. They starve people like my family. Teach me. That is your job. You must teach even convicts like me.”

The friars who visited the Toulon bagne each week listened to their newest pupil patiently. Jean Valjean found the smiles on their faces annoying. The irritation spread, scratching at the back of his mind like a splinter that he could not quite pick out from under his skin. Smiles did not belong in Toulon. Anger did. And anger was what fueled his resolve. Jean Valjean trailed his eyes in the direction of one of the friars’ outstretched arm. He was offering Jean Valjean a seat on a bench. On a table, there was a book. Even without knowing the letters, he knew what book it was.

“No, I will not read that book. It is full of laws and judgment. The guards already remind us everyday of that. Teach me to read with something else.”

The friars agreed to use a different book. After he learned to recognize the letters, Jean Valjean was taught words and sentences from a book on gardening. He learned quickly; he was already familiar with the concepts behind cultivating soils and growing crops. When a year had passed and he exhausted the pages of the gardening book, he decided to continue his lessons. The friars were careful to choose only passages from the Gospels for him to read. But even so, his hatred burned deeper not at the thought of law and judgment, but at all the goodness and miracles that were so readily available to the people in the pages but were utterly absent at the bagne.

Eventually, he finished reading the entire New Testament. As appreciation, or perhaps as the culmination of three years’ worth of bribery to get him to read about a God he did not believe in, the friars taught him how to write fancy letters. So Jean Valjean learned how to write like properly educated men, like magistrates who penned letters and decrees and never had to spend a night without food in their stomachs. I hate rich people who have nothing to do but to make their letters look pretty, he said. The friars only smiled at him and praised his progress.

He practiced and practiced. He would think about reading and writing when he labored under the scorching sun. Some nights, he would dream about penning a letter, sitting behind a large oak table like a wealthy man. Perhaps he would become an attendant to a magistrate one day. Then he would be respectable again. Then he would be able to spit in the face of the Law and laugh at its failure to keep men like him from becoming rich. Then he would have his revenge.

The bagne was no longer interminable to Jean Valjean. He was nearing—finally!—the end of his sentence. Freedom that until this point had been a distant mirage now loomed close like a reality within his grasp.

-

Prisoner 24601 was released on parole after nineteen years. He was given a yellow passport. When he walked out of the bagne as a free man, Jean Valjean regained his name.

-

**Digne**

If desperation was what first drove Jean Valjean to break a window pane and steal a loaf of bread, then what compelled him to steal forty sous from a chimney boy, when he had 109 francs and fifteen sous to his name and a satchel full of the Bishop’s silver gifted to him in exchange for his soul? The prison guards’ taunts rang loudly in his ears: _men like you will never change_. They were right. He should have been different after the Bishop had forgiven him. But he didn’t feel different, _wasn’t_ different.

“What I wretch I am!” he screamed, and broke down in tears.

He was a thief and would always be a thief. This thought circled in his mind, finding neither beginning nor end, as he wept for the first time in nineteen years. At some point in the evening, the sun had sunk completely beneath the earth. Jean Valjean groped about, not out of blindness of his sight but due to the blindness of his soul. He had promised the Bishop to become an honest man. Yet while the promise was still warm on his lips (Did he say the words? Had he truly promised?), he betrayed the good man by robbing a boy. He looked to the sky. The lack of stars seemed like a sign of judgment over him. Jean Valjean half expected the police to creep up behind him again, but in the cold of the night, nothing but chilled air surrounded him.

Without knowing why, he slipped his hand that still held the damning evidence of his crime into his trouser pocket. As he released the silver coin, a tremor passed through his heart, like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web that still struggled to flutter its wings, trapped by its own device but refusing to give up and die.

As his heart trembled, he turned his head.

Even in the darkness, he could see a tall structure at the end of a long path. The Bishop’s home. I cannot go back there, his instincts screamed, I have betrayed a good man. But the fluttering of his heart persisted, and there was not yet enough pride built up in his newly formed conscience for Jean Valjean to resist the whispers of his soul. And so he walked, head low and shoulders hunched, the very image of a man burdened by a weariness that extended far beyond physical aches, toward the home of a man who had every right to turn him out this time. But, somehow, Jean Valjean allowed himself to hope for the same welcome, the same mercy, and the same kindness.

He knelt outside the Bishop’s door for hours, alternately losing the courage to knock and faltering in his resolve to get up and walk away. He had thought no more tears would come, but ended up crying some more. His trouser pocket with the boy’s silver coin felt heavy, a weight upon his leg like the iron that used to bind him to the chain gang. His throat burned from his raw heaving and earlier screams. And his heart… his heart felt too alive. As if to make up for almost two decades of not feeling anything, it now burst with anguish and guilt and self-recrimination that he didn’t know how to get rid of, didn’t know if it would ever be possible. 

He was sprawled prostrate before the entrance, like a puppet cut loose from all strings, when the door opened.

“Come in, Jean Valjean, my brother,” the gentle voice—still gentle, because the Bishop had no idea what he had done—said.

He didn’t know how he mustered enough strength to stand. But he did, and as he stumbled inside, he found himself looking into eyes that seemed to extend to him the very welcome into the gates of heaven.

The thought halted his steps. The Bishop was a good man. He did not know the wretch that he was letting in. He must tell him.

“You gave me silvers. They are worth money. I also have money. I earned it, nineteen years. But Monsieur le curé. No! Monseigneur. I – I am a thief. After I left, I stole forty sous. I cannot give it back; I cannot find Petit Gervais. Now I have the piece with me. This means Jean Valjean is a thief. I don’t want to be Jean Valjean. I don’t want to go back! Oh, but you are a good man. Good men follow laws. Will you turn me to the police? You did not earlier. I do not understand. I am a convict, a thief! You should be afraid of me. I am dangerous!”

The Bishop looked at Jean Valjean with compassionate eyes.

“My brother, heaven rejoices more over one sinner who repents than ten thousand who profess self-righteousness. You are just learning to be an honest man. It will be difficult at first, since you have spent so many years in a place of darkness. But you already belong to God, and He will guide you and help you stand again if you falter.

“But come, you must be hungry. And how fortunate I am! I do believe I have awakened myself from hunger at this hour. I will need to eat. I hope you are willing to partake in a meal with me?”

He guided Jean Valjean to the dining table with a gentle hand on his arm. Like a dazed lamb newly rescued from falling into a hole in the ground, Jean Valjean followed.

“Monsieur… I mean, Monseigneur –”

“Myriel. Call me Myriel.”

Myriel didn’t sound like a Bishop’s name. But then this Bishop was so different from the one he had seen at the bagne.

“You… you will not turn me to the police?”

Jean Valjean thought he heard a sigh. Monseigneur Myriel was sad. But he wasn’t angry.

“No, I will not turn you over to the police. My brother, there are many things you will come to understand in due time. I will use what time I have to share the ways of God with you before you must continue on your journey. But one thing you need to always remember: your soul has been purchased for God. From now on, you must strive to follow God’s Law. It is above man’s law.”

Half comprehending, Jean Valjean nodded. He wasn’t going back to prison, this much he understood.

He sat, numb and mute, as Myriel fussed about in the kitchen and brought out a tray with bread and soup. He wondered why the Bishop was apologizing for the soup being cold and a day old—this was his food! And to him, the bread was a thing of luxury, soft and white and without mold. His eyes caught sight of the wooden forks and spoons set out before them. No more silver. He felt as if the wooden forks had stabbed him in the chest and the knives had pierced through his heart. He took, or rather, the Bishop gave him (for both were true) all the silvers he had. As if that was not enough, he had to take more silver from a boy.

A bowl of soup and a plate of bread appeared before his line of vision, breaking his sullen stupor. Without looking up, Jean Valjean knew he was being served with a smile. Nothing made sense. At Toulon, he would be tied to the rack and receive many lashes. Here, he was treated like a king.

He was hungry, and hunger broke down all inhibition. Jean Valjean all but inhaled his bowl of soup, paying no heed to the strangeness that the Bishop, who moments ago had declared his hunger, made no move to taste his food. As Jean Valjean finished his bread, Myriel got up and walked into the kitchen, emerging with a second portion of soup (it was warm this time) and some new bread. During this pause, Jean Valjean dug into his pocket and took out the offending object that had been burning like molten coal against his leg for the past hours.

“See here, Monseigneur, I stole this from the boy. His name is Petit Gervais. I looked for him. But he was gone. I saw a curé on horseback. I gave him four five-franc pieces. I asked him to arrest me but he refused. Why did he not call the police? Why don’t you? You said I promised to be an honest man. A thief cannot be an honest man.”

Myriel reached out a hand. But he did not take the silver. Instead, he folded Jean Valjean’s fingers over the piece.

“How much is this silver piece worth?” he asked.

“Forty sous.”

“And what is its worth to you?”

Jean Valjean stared at the Bishop, uncomprehending.

“It is a forty-sou piece, Monseigneur.”

“That it is.”

He waited for Myriel to say more, but the man smiled in a way that said he was satisfied with the point he had made, and Jean Valjean was left feeling confused, his hand clutching a mystery that he could not solve. And so he imitated Myriel and turned back to his soup, slipping the coin back into his pocket, not wanting to be impolite.

He ate and ate, emptying the entire bowl of soup and plate of bread. He had not thought he was hungry before he started eating. Before, he was consumed by Petit Gervais. There was no room to think of hunger when he was staring at his own wretchedness, an abyss too deep for trivialities like an empty stomach.

He was a thief. Thieves belonged in prison. Yet he was here. Called _Monsieur_ and _vous_ and eating the best food he had tasted in nineteen years! It would be a dream if he did not still have the stolen silver with him. The silver piece condemned him, weighing down his pocket. Weighing down something inside him. _Is this what a soul feels like?_ he wondered. _Is it true, that I have a soul?_

“My brother, you are staring,” Myriel’s voice drifted into his cottoned mind. He blinked and broke eye contact with the bowl, lifting his head to find gentleness directed his way. But there was no pity. Pity was a weakness and he had burned away all traces of it at the bagne, even pity directed at himself. There was none on the Bishop’s face. “The voices inside your head can be a terrible thing. I find it helpful to whistle a tune sometimes. It scatters the accusations. Other times, I would meditate on a story. Do you like stories?”

A story was better than the things he was feeling inside. Jean Valjean nodded.

“Good, good! Then let me tell you a story of a man about your age, someone already set in his ways but not yet devoid of hope to change. This man once lived in Aix. He had wealth and power. He attained the highest level of education. He was groomed by his father to become a councilor in the future. He even had the most beautiful wife in the world. And if he lacked anything, all he needed was to make a demand of it. No one refused him.”

Jean Valjean tried to picture this man in his mind: a face wearing handsome features and a body wrapped in extravagant clothing, with a beautiful woman by his side. This was a man who belonged to the memories of Jean of Faverolles, pruning atop a tree and catching glimpses of aristocratic faces inside carriages, people who traveled on the high roads to and from their big houses.

Surely the Bishop was trying to gladden his heart with the tale of a successful rich man. Men of wealth lacked nothing. They lived happy lives.

He heard Myriel sigh.

“But having everything wasn’t enough for him. The man was never content to stay home. He spent every evening in revelry, frequenting dinners and _salons_. He dallied with young mesdemoiselles afterwards, sometimes even with married women. He claimed he had no child, but he was never sure if he wasn’t father to some of his lovers’ newborns.

“As for his worldly ambitions, this man did not have to work very hard at all. His only duties consisted of flattering those in power and imparting upon them how promising a statesman he was surely becoming. He was persuasive, for they believed him. And so his days were easy and carefree, because he had no charity in his heart to care for others.”

This was a story about a bad man, Jean Valjean realized. But rich people, whether good or bad, did not share the fate of poor people like him. No one he knew at the bagne had come from a wealthy family.

“What happened to him?” he asked.

Myriel shrugged. “The revolution came, and he fled to Italy.”

“This isn’t a proper ending.”

“No, it is not.” Myriel smiled. “Life rarely gives us stories that fit neatly into storybooks.”

“This is a true story?”

“All stories contain elements of truth.”

He didn’t know the proper response. So he nodded.

“Leaving the past behind wasn’t easy at first.” Myriel’s voice had become distant. Jean Valjean wasn’t sure if this was still part of the story, or if he was even speaking to him. “But it got easier. After all, when one loses everything, the only way that remains is to turn one’s eyes toward heaven.”

This, Jean Valjean understood.

“I don’t know how to look to heaven. Can you show me?”

“Set your heart on attaining the light, and you will know how to walk in our Lord’s way.”

“But –” But he carried the brand of a yellow ticket. He still carried a sack of stolen silver. He would always be considered lesser in the eyes of society.

“Let me tell you another story. Do you know the story of Mary Magdalene?”

He knew this name from learning how to read from the friars. Jean Valjean nodded.

“She was the first to witness our Lord’s resurrection. It was an honor beyond measure,” Myriel said. His tone was reverent, as if St. Mary herself was in their midst. But Jean Valjean knew that wasn’t possible. Being in the presence of one saint was already more than he deserved.

Myriel continued, “In the beginning, she was no different than you or I. She lived a life of sin. She had seven evil spirits cast out of her. But she was penitent. She followed the Lord and He transformed her into a saint.”

The Bishop said all this while looking intently at him. It was as though he wasn’t talking about Mary Magdalene at all.

Could he do it? Could he follow the Lord and never fall back into darkness?

He didn’t know.

Myriel rose from his chair.

“Come, Monsieur Valjean. Let us go to our Lord.”

 

For the rest of the night until sunrise, Myriel led Jean Valjean in prayer. “You already know how” was all the instruction Myriel gave. Jean Valjean did not want to disappoint the Bishop or contradict him, so he remained silent as he knelt beside Myriel and mimicked turning the rosary in his hand and tried his best to memorize the words the Bishop prayed. The repetition of the words and the motions soothed him. By the time the Bishop ended their time of prayer, Jean Valjean realized that he had joined in the recitation at some point.

Myriel gave him a Bible and a rosary. He also blessed him. This wasn’t like the distant voice of the bishop he saw at Toulon, who mumbled words he could not hear with an incomprehensible voice. This felt like a commendation. Myriel was entrusting his soul into the care of God. “May you find happiness, Jean Valjean,” he said, his eyes twinkling with sincere goodwill and utmost confidence in this new brother he had acquired. “May you find love, and may you experience what a blessing and privilege it is to give happiness and love.”

Jean Valjean thought he should say _amen_. But he mumbled _thank you_ instead.

Outside once again, Jean Valjean looked to the rising sun. It illuminated the vast fields before him, inviting him to a new journey. _Magdalene_ , he thought, the promise of a new life for the penitent. He decided he liked the name.

He had his light—the light of Bishop Myriel, the gleaming of the silver candlesticks that now represented gifts instead of stolen goods—to guide him. His heart now burst with hope. The forty sous in his trouser pocket no longer burned him. It was stolen silver, yes, but it was worth more, had come to mean more. The coin marked his turning point; he resolved to never steal again.

He fumbled for the coin. It gleamed under the morning sun, and his eyes closed on their own accord to block out the sudden stab of light. His grip loosened, and the coin fell out of his hand, rolling five or sixes paces ahead of him before coming to a stop.

This was not the direction of the road marked out for him, Jean Valjean thought as he walked with his back toward the sun to pick up the coin. It was not in the direction of Pontarlier.

But, facing west, he was able to lift his eyes toward heaven and see the sky.

He set off toward the sea.


End file.
